The Last Hope

by Henry Seton Merriman

Barebone put aside the point. He must, at all events, have learnt humility from Septimus Marvin—a quality not natural to his temperament.

“And you are responsible, as well,” he went on, “because you have taught me a use for the education.”

“Indeed!” she said, gently and interrogatively, as if at last he had reached the point to which she wished to bring him.

“Yes; the best use to which I could ever put it. To talk to you on an equality.”

He looked hard at her through the darkness, which was less intense now; for the moon was not far below the horizon. Her face looked white, and he thought that she was breathing quickly. But they had always been friends; he remembered that just in time.

“It is only natural that I should look forward, when we are at sea, to coming back here—” He paused and kicked the turf-wall with his heel, as if to remind her that she had sat in the same corner before and he had leant against the same wall, talking to her. “They are good fellows, of course, with a hundred fine qualities which I lack, but they do not understand half that one may say, or think—even the Captain. He is well educated, in his way, but it is only the way of a coasting-captain who has risen by his merits to the command of a foreign-going ship.”

Miriam gave an impatient little sigh. He had veered again from the point.

“You think that I forget that he is my relative,” said Loo, sharply, detecting in his quickness of thought a passing resentment. “I do not. I never forget that. I am the son of his cousin. I know that, and thus related to many in Farlingford. But I have never called him cousin, and he has never asked me to.”

“No,” said Miriam, with averted eyes, in that other voice, which made him turn and look at her, catching his breath.

“Oh!” he said, with a sudden laugh of comprehension. “You have heard what, I suppose, is common talk in Farlingford. You know what has brought these people here—this Monsieur de Gemosac, and the other—what is his name? Dormer Colville. You have heard of my magnificent possibilities. And I—I had forgotten all about them.”